Wildflowers of the United States

Reference List for Arizona Wildflower Identification

The Arizona Native Plant Society is a statewide nonprofit organization devoted to Arizona's native plants. Its mission is to promote knowledge, appreciation, conservation, and restoration of Arizona native plants and their habitats. They conduct field trips, publish a newsletter, participate in conservation activities, and conduct workshops hosted by their five regional chapters.

They also provide an online version of Arizona Rare Plant Field Guide, a book published by the Arizona Rare Plant Committee, which included participation from the AZNPS. This field guide covers 125 species which are rare in Arizona, with descriptions, drawings, and color photos.

"Southeastern Arizona Wildflowers and Plants features photographs and descriptions of 449 different wildflower and plant species found here in the southeastern part of Arizona, USA. Featured are Sonoran Desert wildflowers and the plant species found in the areas surrounding the city of Tucson, Arizona in Pima County."

"Guide with color photos and line drawings to almost 400 species of Sonoran Desert Plants." This is the flora section of Arizonensis.org - a website focused on Arizona Natural History. The flora section presents nearly 400 plants of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.

This site has as of this writing 715 different East Tennessee wildflowers in the various photo galleries, which can be searched by common name and scientific name. In addition, Kris Light has made wildflower photo/ID trips to Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah, and has additional wildflower photos from those states

Over 50 species of wildflowers found in USA deserts, organized by flower color. Common name, scientific name, and desert regions in which they are found - Mojave, Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Great Basin. These deserts touch 7 states in the western US.

Great resource! Their own description: "The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories."
Provides these important (to me) pieces of info:
1) Listing by state and county within a state where specific species have been identified.
2) Scientific name synonyms are listed.
3) Scientific names are matched to a widely-used common name.
4) Photographs of many species.
5) State by state list of all the species identified in that state.
Official Citation:
USDA, NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 22 June 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Over 9,000 Flickr member photos tagged with wfgna. The WFGNA group has good tagging requirements for their excellent photos, so you'll find, in addtion to the photo, the state in which the photo was taken, and at least a common name and the scientific name as identified by the contributor.
After you get to the linked page you should add search criteria, including the state name, the color of the plant, or scientific name, to reduce the number of photos. Several states have several hundred photos(California has over 1,500!) so you'll probably want to add color to the search criteria.

Steven K. Sullivan has done a tremendous job of putting together a database and search engine to help in identifying wild plants. Not only can you search by plant scientific and common names, you can narrow the results using location (currently lower 48 states and parts of Canada and Mexico), flower shape, color, size, habitat, and observation time. His database currently includes over 7,000 plants. Definitely worth checking out.

From the site: "WildflowerInformation.org is a resource for wildflower enthusiasts and gardeners. With a growing interest in the environment and natural gardening, our objective is to offer comprehensive information that is easy to use, and accessible for those from the casually interested to the expert."

While this information doesn't appear to be on the website itself, WildflowerInformation.org seems to be owned by American Meadows, the "recommended wildflowers seed supplier" of WildflowerInformation.org.

Covering the region from Alaska to California and east to the Great Plains, this well-produced, compact guidebook contains more than 940 photos of over 650 species of wildflowers of western North America. The color images are grouped by flower color to suit the needs of inexperienced enthusiasts. I think anyone interested in wildflowers in the western United States should have a copy of this guide. Situated in the Eastern U.S., I use the Eastern Region guide extensively.